On knocking out Kongo in the first round: “I was actually
looking to probably push the fight more in the second. When I
pushed him against the fence, I just knew there was a panic. I
could just feel that he was starting to breathe heavy, and then
when we actually broke, he was actually breathing heavy. I was
like, whoa, whoa. Then I was like, OK, now we’re going to put the
pressure on him. I just threw two punches and then that wins the
fight. I thought it was going to be a little bit more than
that.”

On the UFC 160 title fight between champion Cain
Velasquez and challenger Antonio
Silva: “The way I look at it is just give me one shot at
either one of them. Definitely it only takes one shot to be the
next heavyweight champion. Junior dos
Santos did it.”

On whether the heavyweight division has a shallow talent
pool: “No, I don’t think we’re shallow. The difference is,
we’re so competitive at the heavyweight division that any given
night, one of us can lose. If it was really that talented in the
other divisions, they should be turning over left and right because
that means it’s very competitive. But in those divisions, I’d say
it’s not competitive if you can hold the belt that long.”

On whether he’d fight Daniel
Cormier, a matchup Nelson’s manager, Mike Kogan, said didn’t
make sense: “I understand where Mike was coming from because if
D.C. wants to fight for the title in the heavyweight division, but
Cain
Velasquez has it, he doesn’t want to actually fight for the
belt. Why even bother doing that? I just want to fight Cain then.
If Cain has the belt, it’s like, I don’t even need to fight
[Cormier]. I just need to beat your boy and then call it a day. …
But if he’s going to hang around in the heavyweight division and
actually really fight for the belt, then it makes sense to fight
him.”

On getting a title shot: “I just want to fight the guy that
has the belt. If I lose, then I lose, but just give me that one
chance and I bet you I can knock their block off.”

On whether he worries that his sometimes contentious
relationship with UFC President Dana White could cost him a title
shot: “No, because it’s not really him that actually does it.
It’s the other guys that actually own it.”

On how fans can help him get a shot: “My pull’s actually the
fans. As long as the fans want to see it and fans want to see
certain fights, they’ll make it happen.”